Puck Soup - Mitch Marner Has Been Grounded

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the Devils winning, the Leafs losing, other struggling teams, injuries, and more.   Sponsored by Trade Coffee (drinktrade.com/puck), Betterhelp (betterhelp.com/puck), and Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I'm Sean McIntyre from The Athletic. And, hey, it's November 1st. I mean Halloween was last night.

And we taught, hey, we set up the Halloween stuff earlier in the month. How did you do? How many bars you give out? Not as many as we were expecting. My street's like a smaller street in between some bigger streets, and I think the kids just kind of bypass it. So we've got some leftovers, and I'm not complaining. Right. So I think I mentioned last time, since we are in a new neighborhood, we asked a neighbor.

like what's a good number to have on hand? And the guy's like, you'll get about 30 kids. I've seen it get up to like 60 or something like that. Just be on the safe side you might want to get around that many bars. So we went a little higher than that because you never know, especially because this feels like the first real Halloween since COVID that like kids are going to be out and about, you know? Yep.

And so we went, I think we probably bought like 80 or 90 big bars and we moved 23 of them. So. Okay. And that included at toward the end of the night being saying to the parents like, take a candy bar, please. Yeah. Nice. Now,

I don't want to talk about this. We had a variety. We had like a bunch of different candy bars. You know, we didn't have like just reasons we had. Yep. I think like 15 or 20 different candy bars. You tweeted out the photo and it was.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And. what of the, you know, big name candy bars, non-Canadian, do you think was the biggest mover of the night? Because this blew my mind. Ooh. See, I don't know because I'm always like, like candy bar.

I don't know what's like an American and what's a Canadian candy bar. Okay. So, but, yeah, go ahead. I'll give you the rundown here. Plain M&M's Peanut M&Ms, Kit Kat, Snickers, Milky Way. Twix, Baby Ruth, Nestle Crunch, 100 grand, Butterfinger, Hershey's with almond, regular Hershey's Reese's Peanut Buttercup. Wow.

And it's not the, it wasn't the peanut butter cups? Not even close. Wow. I mean, the Snickers are a good one that you kind of stuck in there. We moved one Snickers. We moved two Reese's Peanut Bar Cups. I wrote all this down because I was very interested. We're doing Halloween analytics now.

A, you know, watch the holidays. or whatever, but I know the leader pretty much all night was Nestle Crunch where we gave out four of those. And then in the last like 20 minutes it got surpassed by plain Hershey Bar. Really? I don't know what these kids are out here thinking.

Plain Hershey. I'm not even sure I know what that is. Like I know the first like little Hershey. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah, yeah, like a little flat square. I don't understand your neighborhood, man. No, me neither.

Because here's the other thing. We didn't move a single Milky Way. And to be fair, like, if you're going to get something like that, get a Snickers. Yeah. Yeah. Because that at least has peanuts in it. But a candy bar people talk such a big fucking game about, oh, this is one of the best. It's so good.

Didn't get any butterfingers taken off our hands. Wow. I mean, I'm all right with that. I'm not a big Butterfingers guy. No, me neither. But any time I say that, people are like, what? You don't like Barfingers? So now take it up with dozens of children.

Just so I'm clear. Like, a kid comes to your door and they get like the full layout and they get the pick. All right. Yeah, we had everything on a tray. Yeah. And we were like, take your pick. And, yeah, like almost like almost every time I was like, huh, that one. Yeah.

Okay. interesting, you know, but... Did, uh, how many kids like instantly picked and how many kids like went into mental lockdown overwhelmed with these? Maybe like two kids really thought about it. That's, that's the problem with kids these days, right? Almost everybody just grabbed at them. Which like, hey, you know.

But that, that's what makes the plain Hershey's move seem so crazy to me. Is that these kids are like, whoa, plain Hershey's. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I'm not saying no to a plane Hershey if you offer me one. No, but of all those options, you're like, you're in my, your mind immediately is saying, hey, let's make this happen. I don't know. That's crazy. I'm with you.

But now I have a lot of like Reese's and Kit Katz and Eminem sitting around. You're, this is, you're going to go through like the, are you going to get like the Homer Simpson, Moomoo and. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, right. But hey, maybe we'll have a listener contest to get these butterfingers the hell out of my house because I'm not eating them. But yeah, anyway, let's talk about hockey. And the one, I mean, look, let's tie it into the Halloween season. The Devils.

Oh, nice. They're good. How good. Well, isn't that the question, right? Because they have the best underlines in the league. Like 66% of the XGs in all situations, 70 at 5 on 5. Yeah. And we should say that for, you know, people who maybe aren't, we're really sure of the context.

Like, that's insanely good. That's not just a little bit good. 60 would be 60's insanely good. Yeah. 70s unheard of. Yes. I guess I can look it up really quickly, but I can't imagine there are. Like, it's almost like sometimes when you see a team winning and then you look at the underlying numbers

and you see that they're like just around 50% or even lower, you go, oh, well, this is fake, this team can't. Yeah, they're getting results they don't deserve. And then the higher the numbers get, you sort of move further and further into, no, this is for real territory. And it feels like with the devils right now, the numbers are so high that it like ate its way through to the other side

and it feels fake again. Because you're like, there's, like this is like mid-80s oilers stuff. Right, right. So the only. only in a full season, so not even counting a 56 game season. The 56 game record is 60.7, set by the Avalanche two years ago. Or last season, well, no, yeah, two years ago. And then after that, the highest in an 82 game season is the 1314 San Jose Sharks.

they had an XG of 57.9 at 5 on 5. As I said, the devils are currently at 70. But there are a bunch of teams, let's put it this way. Right now, five of the six highest teams in XG ever are this season. So these numbers are coming down, is the point. Yeah, it's a short, small sample size. You're going to get some weird. Yes.

but you got to say they're killing everybody right now. Yes, for Rat is, I think he's got 15 points in eight or nine games. Everybody else, like Dougie Hamilton, Jack Hughes, Nico Heesh, all these guys are also scoring at a high rate that you would kind of maybe expect for that. Although Jack Hughes is playing well, but he's not, like he's not having the monster breakout, which I think, like, if you told me at the beginning of the season, Devils are going to be really good. I would have gone out. Jack Hughes must have gotten Supernova. And that hasn't quite happened yet. He's playing perfectly fine. He's just not, he's not the reason that they're getting these results.

Right. No, for sure. And, you know, I think, I think if you look at their scoring, they're getting a pretty solid, like, even distribution throughout the lineup. Like, you know, top line, everybody has like seven or eight points. apart from Brat. You know, second line, everybody has six or seven point, that kind of thing. And that's good. You want everybody scoring consistently. It won't, again, it won't last because it never does, right? Like everybody goes through many slumps and that kind of thing.

But like, this isn't like it's a one-line team right now, is my point. Which, again, that's really good. That's what you want. Here's the crazy part. We talked about this, I think, a week or last week or maybe two weeks. go. If you don't, if you're like, oh, I don't trust this goaltending. They're getting 887 team goaltending for the season.

And they're still, I think, second in their division. It's crazy. It's crazy. Because this is, you know, we short sample size or small sample size, this is what we, we always talk about this time of year. Some team is having crazy results after 10 games and we all sit and go, what are they doing differently? Are they using a different system?

Is it the coaching? And then you just go, show me the goaltending. And, oh, the goalie's playing good, so the team's doing well. Yeah. Or vice versa. No, the goaltending is bad in New Jersey. Yeah. Which is not a good sign if you're a Devils fan, but it's also sort of terrifying that

they're playing this well with substandard goaltending. Like, they look like that classic team. We say this about a few teams every year where it's like, they just need average gold. The goaltending is average. And they were kind of that team last year. Like, they, with average goaltending, they could have been a playoff team last year. Yes. And they still don't have average goaltending, but they've just decided to screw that.

We're just going to spend the entire game and the other team's end. I, man, I'm starting to think that my whole Lindy Rough first coach fire thing isn't going to happen. Well, we're going to talk about why in a second, right? But, uh, right. Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting situation for the devils because as many people have pointed out. This is not a novel concept that we're introducing here. I'm just going to read you their opponents so far this season. The Flyers, the Red Wings, the Ducks, the Islanders, the Sharks, the Capitals, the Red Wings again, the Avalanche and the Blue Jackets.

That's two playoff teams from last year. And they lost to the Capitals. They lost to the Capitals. That's their first loss since they started playing well. Yeah. They did beat the Avalanche on Friday. They won nothing. Yeah.

Impressive. Yeah, hey. But also the Allenian may be not looking so hot these days. So, but, you know, hey, you only, again, you got to play who's on the schedule. They can't be like, you know what? Actually, we're going to actually move the game against the Calgary Flames and the Boston Bruins. We're going to, we're going to front load those on our schedule. They don't let you do that.

So, you know, hey, you got to beat all these bad teams. They're on the schedule. You got to beat them. And the devils are like, what if we beat this shit out of it? Mm-hmm. Well, that sounds actually pretty good. Yep. So, I don't know.

Obviously, they killed Columbus on hell night or whatever. What do they call it up? Do they call this anything in Canada? The night before Halloween when you're doing all the pranks? Oh, I think it's just the night before Halloween. Okay. I've heard it referred to as hell night, devil's night, etc. but yeah

that's when they destroyed the blue jacket seven to one and kind of made everybody on the blue jackets go what are we fucking doing here I don't know man this is this is rough

so yeah I think my take on the devils right now is they're not this good I don't trust the goaltending and if the results start to thin out a little bit I won't be surprised, but they've banked a bunch of points already.

And, you know, what did they? I don't remember what they had last year. They're at 12 right now. They had 63 last year. I feel like they're, you know, they're in good shape to improve upon that. So, yeah, I mean, if they can get, like you said, average goaltending, the rest of the way, which they've gotten better goaltending in the last few games. Like, even if you're including the six three loss to the capitals, I think the goaltending,

you know, been very solid. They've only allowed, doing the math real quick. 11 goals in the last six games. That's a good number. That'll win you more off, when you games more often than not, you know? Yep.

Although there was, those 11 goals came on 14 shots against. That's right. Yeah. But no, like that's the point, though, is maybe the goal tendings turning itself around. and it's not because they're playing Mackenzie Blackwood a lot, let's put it that way.

And, you know, again, like, if Vedic Vannichak can be, like, fine, I think this team's all set, but I just don't trust this goal-tending as far as I can throw it. And it is worth pointing out, like, as good as they've been, they're two points up on the islanders for sixth place in the metro. Yeah, the metro is a tough one. It's a bit of a traffic jam, and, you know, it's early.

and by the time people get around to listening to this in a couple of days, if that's when they're listening to it, it might already have shifted. But as far as early season, like, they're the big surprise. Because when they started 0 and 2, I was like,

oh, yeah, the devil stink again. And then, like, I saw a couple of things where people were, like, hosting.

They were champing fire rough. Yeah. Fucking six games ago. He got, he was getting booed at the opening, right? Like, you know,

and he's looking around trying to figure it out. And then, you know, I've seen these things like people would post these charts and, you know, some blah, blah, devils. I kind of tuned it out. It wasn't until like a few days ago when I sat down to write one of my pieces. I'm like, holy crap, the devils are just speedbagging everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like, you know who else is doing that?

And this is the other big surprise of the season is the Sabres, right? um tage thompson had a hat trick and three assists last night like but to your point earlier the sabers underlying numbers are at like 52% in all situations which is good like that'll keep you in the top half of the league all season for obvious reasons but um you know do we think they're this good what are they second in the atlantic right now i don't think anybody is they're six and three same as same as the devils and again like We've been down this road with the samers, right? Maybe once or twice it's happened.

But it's pretty wild. I'm just looking. The Eastern Conference. Yeah. Here are the teams that are under 500. You ready? Columbus. That's it.

That's the whole list. That's literally it. Everyone else is 500 or better. In points percentage, not in wins and loss. Yes, fake 500. Right. Yeah, there are only seven teams in the entire league that are under 500 right now.

Anaheim, San Jose, Vancouver, obviously, Arizona, St. Louis, Nashville, and Columbus. We'll talk about Nashville and St. Louis in a minute, but first we've got to talk about the world's worst 500 team, the 500

team that everybody hates and is pissed at. It's the Toronto Maple Leafs. Everybody hates and is pissed at them. Yeah. Even more so than usual. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it's bad right now. They, uh, I'm trying to think that when we record it last week, they would have just lost to Vegas. And so, and everybody would have been like, yeah, you're going to lose to Vegas sometimes.

Vegas is, Vegas is good team. So they were, they were heading out on their, uh, California road trip, played all three California teams. And they went 0 for three. Now they got, oops, two of those losses came in overtime, uh, but there's still losses. So they've lost four games in a row. They lost to the Sharks on Thursday, lost to the Kings on Saturday. And then Sunday night, they go into Anaheim. They have a 2-1 lead going into the third period.

They score early in the third period, go up 3 to 1, get a penalty shot with a chance to go up 4 to 1. Don't convert that. And then just play some of the worst hockey that I've ever seen. seen from from this team it was it was bad there are times where whether it's the leaves or any other team like a team quote unquote blows a lead like they give up a lead in the third period and people go oh my god they gave up a lead and you're like yeah but the that puck bounced over there or you know deflected off a guy's skate like you know it happens sometimes at hockey's there's a lot of bounces the leaves were up 3-1 and especially

when they gave up the goal to make it 3 to 2 I don't know that I've ever seen a team play as scared as that Leafs team was. And this is like a so-called cup contender playing against the team that heading into that game was dead last in the entire NHL. And I mean, the Leafs were just like begging to get to overtime. And they did. And they lost. And the big story out of that game was that Mitch Marner got benched for like two whole shifts.

Yeah. And now the entire, the entire Leaf market is on like, Mitch Marner watch to see if he's going to be sad or not, I guess. It's a bit of a mess. Sheldon Keefe is on a very hot seat. Lots of talk about, you know, trades, issues with the roster. Here's how I knew it was a bit of a mess. I saw you tweet the word narratives.

And I was like, oh, boy, this is, this is rough stuff. This is an indication that it's really all going. going fucking sideways. When normally very sane and even-handed people are like, oh, sure, but this is all for narratives. I was like, they are drowning. This team is fucked. It is bad.

And a couple things worth pointing out. I mean, first of all, yes, they've had injuries. They had, like, they blew that lead with their third string, minor league goalie, etc. Yeah. Sure. The flip side of this is a lot of people are pointing out like, hey, they had a very similar record this time last year. And then they just bulldoze the rest of the season.

Right. Regular season. So, you know, are we just repeating that? And, you know, Myrtle has pointed out a few times. There are some significant differences between this start. They are playing a lot worse. They are playing. Yeah.

Last year, they were playing not great, but also, you know, not getting results. You would have said it's because they couldn't get a save last year. They couldn't get a save. They were playing Michael Hutchinson and net. Austin Matthews was just coming off surgery. so he was having a slow start. There were... Hey, you know, something continued, huh?

Yeah, the slow start part, but he's supposed to be healthy, we're told. So, I mean... Right. They're a mess right now. And it's very interesting because Jonas at the athletic road a piece where he said, you know,

boy, this benching Marner, this could backfire on Sheldon Keith. This could maybe not work because Marner's kind of a guy that, you don't know how he's going to respond to that. Keith has, like, called out and bench William Nealander before. And Nealander doesn't seem to bother.

Which, you know, take that for whatever it is. But he just seems to brush it off, whereas Marner's like a more emotional. And I got to tell you, I hope the people around Mitch Marner are giving him a heads up right now. That the tide is turning big. Like, not that people don't like him as a player. He had a couple giveaways in Sunday's game. And that's why, you know, that's why he. got benched.

People still like him as a player, but if this turns into the, like, Mitch Martner's feelings are hurt and Mitch versus the coach, it's not going to go his way. I can just tell you. It's already like that. It turns even more into. Like, if this, when I say turns into, like Mitch Marner could come out at, you know, practice here or whatever and be like, yeah, man, I play crappy and I deserve to get benched and I'm just going to get, you know, the cliche stuff.

But we've already, like, this narrative is already happening. right because we we had the beginning of the year keef was like our elite players haven't been elite and marner kind of had a bit of a sulk about that by saying what i meant to say was uh everybody's good yeah yeah and then and because marner does this whole like well i had to talk to him and figure and then keith walks it back and the perception was that the coach offered incredibly mild criticism of his star players one of his star players at least Mitch marter didn't like it and the coach had to backtrack. And, you know, fair or not, probably not fair.

It's probably nonsense. None of us are there behind closed doors. But this is how it's perceived. And if this turns into this again, man, like, this isn't going to go great. I always, Mitch Martin is such a talented player, but I always wonder, like, the people around him, like, are they telling him how it really is and how things are perceived? Or are they just pumping his tires? I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is it's bad in Toronto, but there is lots of room for this to get much, much worse.

Yeah. So the other stuff I want to talk about the leaves here is that, you know, I guess we have to point out, first of all, that like the injuries on the blue line are significant in terms of the guys they're missing, not in terms of maybe like how long everybody's going to be out. Yeah. Well, Jake Muzzin, Myrtle mentioned today that he thinks Muzin may even be out for the season. Yeah, no, I mean that. That's a big one. That's obviously a big one. But like, Lilligran's on injured reserve.

He'll be back. Who else? There's one other guy. Some of the death guys are out. But they do. Like Morgan Riley and T.J. Brody are their two best defensemen. And they're both healthy. Mark Giordano's healthy.

So it's not like it's decimated. Right. But yeah. Yeah, it's missing a couple key pieces, I guess. I'm not, I'm certainly not trying to make excuses for them. I'm trying to be like, what the fuck's wrong with these guys?

Like, is it really like, it can't be just missing Jake Muzin, obviously, you know? But yeah, I, I don't know. Like,

I don't know how you turn this around because, like, you know, Morgan Riley, that's supposed to be your, like, franchise defenseman or whatever. I think he's been like,

thoroughly mediocre this year. Yep. Like, God, I'm going to look it up really quickly, but I would imagine the Leifes have been outscored when he's on the ice. Yeah, 12 to 6 they've been outscored. That's horrible. And, you know, that's not all his fault.

Like we mentioned, Austin Matthews has, I think, one. The Matthews line isn't scoring. The Tavaris-Nielander line is scoring, but they're not they're certainly not dominating. They're barely trading water as far as, as far as like possession and zone time and all of that. They're the line that always gets the offensive zone starts.

So you'd expect them to score and they have been. But, and then the third and fourth lines, which largely reconstructed as they are every year in Toronto. Like this is part of the success stories in the last few years in Toronto. The regular season was they kept bringing in these cheap guys and finding hits out of that. And Michael Button being the obvious example, but even the Jason Spets and guys like that. And they just haven't found that yet this year.

Like all the guys they brought in to be bottom six have not played well. So they're kind of a two-line team. And even those two lines aren't playing great. And the other thing we should say is we just finished saying with the devils, yeah, yeah, they're playing great. But look at the, look at who they played. Look at the Leafs have played. Yeah, that's the opposite. Like, they're losing to bad teams.

Yeah, they've played, they have not played a team yet that made it out of the first round last year. They've played, what, see, Washington, Dallas, L.A. are the only playoff teams that they have played. Right. And they won two of those games, but. I got to say, I mean, we can talk about this in a different thing, but like, Washington is, like, not that good. No. No, it was certainly not an impressive win to be Washington. Yeah, no.

Especially at home and all this other stuff. Yeah, they're missing. Backstrom, Brown, Carlson, Hagelin, Oshy Wilson right now. Obviously, some of those players would have played against the Leafs. But like, oh, you look at that, you're like, oh, that's a good percentage of the top half of the Washington Capital's roster. Right. Is just like missing. Which is again, like when you're looking at the Leafs and you go, well, you know, they're missing some guys with injury.

Most teams are by now. Even 10 games into the season. Yeah. I mean, Washington's like beat like bad shape, though. Like those are guys that normally you would say, oh, I would expect, you know, four of those guys to be like among the six or seven best players on the team. Yep. But yeah, I guess that's the end of my Washington sidebar. But it'll be interesting to see if they can tread wall.

water until some of those guys come back if they can. So the other things that are a little interesting with the Leafs is they have basically, the offense just isn't, there hasn't been a single game where the offense has looked good, which is what you expect with this Leafs. Like this is part of the, even when they're playing bad, the knock on them has been, well, they can win six to five. And that's not how you win in the playoffs, but during the regular season you can. In fact, they have not had a game, and I thought I heard on the broadcasts them say that they're the only team this is true for.

I haven't checked this. They have not either scored or allowed five goals all season long. Every game has been 3-2, 4-3-4-2, which is, you know, that's not great defensively, but it's interesting that like those high-scoring, high event. Like, this is, in a way, they're kind of doing what the critics had told them to do, which is dial it down, be more boring. playing, play low-scoring games, but it's clearly not working for them. And then the other thing is, you know, in terms of the schedule, they've got the Flyers tomorrow at home, which is, you know, again, it has the potential that the fan base is not happy right now.

The Flyers come in, a team that is on paper supposed to be bad, but are doing better than expected. And hmm, they got a new coach. And isn't that interesting? That could go bad. And then after that, it's Boston, Carolina, Vegas, Pittsburgh. Which, yeah, if you don't get a W against the Flyers, you're not expecting any additional Ws anytime soon. By the way, did you see this torts quote about the Flyers and their future?

Unreal for people who didn't see it. Because it's funny, I was like, I saw it float by on Twitter on like Saturday or something. And then I went looking forward again. and I only saw it in one story that was behind a paywall, so I couldn't even. But this is a real quote from John Tortorella, the coach of the Flyers. It needs to be an organizational philosophy that this is going to take patience. That may be different from what was said in the summertime. And then he goes on to add, I wasn't here then, I'm here now.

I see these things up close every day. I know this is going to take time. It's basically what John Tortorella said. And that's really funny to me That he's like, oh, we're playing well We've been trying to sell more tickets Because everybody was really down on us And then we started playing well

So I was like, oh, okay, we're going to We're going to sell all these tickets And then he was immediately like, we need like a full rebuild This team sucks Yep Which rules This is like the third team it's happened to this season Where they go in going, oh, yeah, we're actually going to be good.

Vancouver's obviously another one. And then not so much, actually, it turns out. Yeah, that was a great quote because, look, we all said that in the summer and in the, when Chuck Fletcher had that horrible press conference where he had to sit next to his boss and, you know, his boss is like elbowing him. And he's like, oh, no, we're not going to rebuild. where this team's good. And nobody bought it. Nobody believed it.

No, of course not. But when the boss says this is the plan, then you kind of have to go with that. And I think it's great for the Flyers for Tortor Al coming and be like, no, we're not good. And we need to rebuild. And yeah, it's probably one of the best things that could happen for the Flyers. Yeah, no, for sure. Like, just to have somebody say, come on, let's be real here. is,

it's really refreshing, you know, um, because, now, like, I guess the one thing you would say is, if there's anybody who is never going to give a fuck about this kind of thing,

I guess it would be John Tortorella, right? Like, honest to a fault in a lot of ways and, and that kind of stuff. But, um, yeah, I mean,

they're, they're bad and him saying they're bad is cool to me. Um, you know, why don't we, uh, why don't we, uh,

why don't we take a break and then we'll come back and talk about some other teams that maybe should start saying the same things as torts just said. Nice. Let's do it. Okay. This episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Better Help. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a user manual. So when things are not working for you, it's normal to feel stuck.

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Obviously, they've won two straight. Yep, they're fixed. They're figuring it all out. They also went out and traded for Jack Sted Nica from the Bruins, who was like a guy they liked for a while, but didn't seem like he was ever really going to get a chance in Boston with the forward group being what it is. And then I think the next day they also traded for Ethan Baer to help shore up that. defense. So two guys who their previous employers didn't have much time for.

The Canucks were like, come on over, baby. We're going to make it happen. I don't know how I feel about Steadnick. I've obviously said like I'm an Ethan Bear believer in the past. So I hope it works out for both parties here. That's a That's a player, I think, deserves more of a look than he's gotten at the NHL level. Yep, that's fair. And, I mean, sometimes making a trade does send a message to teams. And also sometimes you just happen to get a couple of wins. And I think that's probably what happened here.

Yeah, they beat a not very good crack in team by one goal. And they beat anyone's team. They really tried to blow that game. Yeah, they did. They really tried to blow that game. And then beat a penguin's team that's sort of imploding a little bit. So, yeah. And they've got, they've got the devils tonight.

So that's going to be a fun matchup to watch. Yeah. Let's see, let's see how this one goes. Yeah. I think, I think it was Elliot said the other day, like, basically management impressed upon the players in a not so subtle way. Like, if you're trying to get the coach fired, that won't be the, only thing that we do if we do something. Which always strikes me as like a, I always wonder about that when you hear like bad teams,

struggling teams and it's like, hey, you know, we're going to start trading guys. And it's like, is that a threat? But I guess it is because, I mean, we always. Hey, we wouldn't live in Vancouver. What did that one guy say that, you know, hockey players, they like to be where their stuff is? And maybe the idea of having to move their stuff is not. Yeah. Plus, you know, like there's no guarantee you don't.

get traded to say Arizona or whatever. You know, like, that's the, that's the very real threat. If I'm, if I'm a coach or a GM who's pissed at his players and is like shipping them out, um, I'm not, I'm not like, well, we send you to Boston. What don't we send you to Tampa, you know, like where the team's good and everything. Although I guess the lightning aren't having the best start to the season. But, you know, I think. And I think the other thing that Elliot said was like that he included like, I'd put some of you guys on waivers.

You think I give a shit? Yeah. Which is like, uh-oh. You don't want to end up on waivers. There is something to be said for being like having the crusty old man GM who can just come in. Like I'm kicking all of you off my lawn. Which is, I guess, funny because he's not the GM, Patrick Alvin. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, who's really running the show over there? Well. That's not a bad way to do it though, right? Like have the guy, have the big name, well-known, well-respected, crusty old guy be like the voice and then have the, you know, young, smarter GM. Some people have called the good cop, bad cop. There you go. But, yeah, so the Canucks will be interesting to watch.

I think they kind of dug themselves a bit of a hole here that's going to be tough to get out of in that division because, you know, say what you want about how Edmonton's record looks right now. I think we all expect them to be there at the end of the year. And then, well, I guess they're six and three. Yeah, and Edmontons, they're doing all right. I guess lately it feels like they've kind of hit the skids a little bit. Yeah. Well, they went through a bump in the middle.

They've been winning lately. Yeah. Well, but like in terms of how they've been playing, right? Like barely beating Chicago and this sort of. a thing. So anyway, but like, yeah, so the oilers are going to be there at the end of the year. The flames are going to be there at the end of the year. Vegas feels like they're going to be there at the end of the year.

And all of a sudden it's like, I guess, you know, I think coming into the year, you were like, oh, anything could happen in the Pacific. And then maybe it's like, oh, no, the three teams, I think a lot of people thought would be the best ones do indeed look like the best ones. So who knows, but. And, you know, the kings are fine. Kings are chugging along. So.

Yeah, I mean, they're a game above 500. And I think they got a couple of overtime wins. So let's not, let's not coronation just yet. And they beat delis and that barely even counts. For sure. But, you know, like if we're talking, let's put it this way. Vancouver is like a handful of games behind the Seattle Cracken in the standings in that division. I don't know how easy it's going to be for them to dig up on this one.

Yeah, they got a long way to go. And this, I mean, it's the cliche, right? Like, you know, it's you can't win in October, but you can blow your whole season if you go 0 and 7. Well, hey, now it's November. So now they're fine. Yeah, now nothing to worry about. They got those two guys who were like barely on their previous teams.

But another team I want to talk about here. in the same vein as the Flyers. The team that was like, no, we're actually good. We're going to be good next year. And everybody's like, is that true? Really? Okay. The Nashville Predators.

Yeah. They're three, five, and one. And two of those wins came against the sharks in like that Europe thing. Yes, correct. Which part of me wonders if that even counts. I mean, it counts. But if that's just not. it last week, the sharks, for a little while there were every, where if you were like, oh, wow,

this team feels like they're overperforming a little bit. This team feels like they're overperforming a little bit. They all played the sharks and the ducks, like every single one of them. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea that beating the sharks is indicative of anything other than you can beat one of the absolute worst teams in the league. Well, you know, but yeah. But, yeah. So the Predators, since they came back from Prague, I believe those games are in Prague, right? The Predators have one win, and it was against the St. Louis Blues, a team who everybody's like, oh, they're kind of like weirdly not that good, huh? And yeah, like, all these games, like, they're losing badly for the most part.

The shootout loss to the Kings, I guess, is the only one where you're like, oh, like, they lost. to Columbus five to three. They lost the cap the capitals three nothing. They lost the Flyers three one. This is a tough look for them for a team that, you know, they, they traded for Ryan McDonough this season. They, they re-signed, um, uh, Phil of Forsberg this summer because they were like, we're going for it.

And the idea, I guess, was as long as you have Yossi Soros, you're like going to be in okay shape to compete for the playoffs, right? Yeah. But he's been okay. He's been a little above average. Yeah. Yeah. Which is not what you expect from him, but also, again, like we said, how many times do you just look and go, oh, they're getting bad goaltending?

That's why they're off to a slow start. Not these guys. They're getting 9-12 team goaltending. 9-12 is good. Yeah. You know? The really, the really crazy part about it is not. not only are they losing all these games.

They're in like the 20s in just about every underlying statistic you can come up with. Now, granted, the high 20s, you know, 21st, 20th, 23rd, whatever. But like that's bad. Remind me how many teams make the playoffs? Is it 20 something? I think it's like 26, 27, something like that. All right. That's good. But like, yeah, they're expected goals percentage is 46 right now.

It's under 46. In all situations. That's, you know, like, I guess my point is, like, I kind of was surprised when they said we're bringing back John Heinz. That seemed like maybe. But, I mean, they made the playoffs in a year that a lot of us didn't think they would. Because of the goaltending, but sure. Because of the goal ten. Because of two 40 goal seasons that nobody would have seen coming, really.

Yeah. And which do not seem to be on their way. who being replicated. No, no. Matt Duchenne is not being that guy. Ryan Jernsey hasn't been good either, which is maybe the one thing you look at and say, that'll change.

Sure, and maybe you say Saros will get even better. Ryan McDonough doesn't look, I mean, he looks like a guy who used to be really good, who's now into his mid-30s and isn't there anymore. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with Ryan McDonough. But like, if you're like, oh, Ryan McDonough is going to be what we need to push us over the edge, well, you're asking a lot of the guy, I guess.

Yeah. And also, like, you don't go out and get Ryan McDonough unless you feel like you're close to something. Yeah. We should say they finished eighth in the West last season. Right. Like, they barely made the playoffs. They made it by like two points or something like that. And that's with three.

seasons that would be tough to replicate. Saros being like a borderline Vesna guy. Matt Duchain scoring 40. Tanner Geno's scoring 25 or whatever he scored last year. There was just a lot of stuff where it's like, I don't know, man. And then they were like, and we're doubling down on that. They scraped into the playoffs getting these crazy big seasons. But again, like, did we think that David Poyle was going to be like,

you know what, it's time for a patient rebuild? Well, so kind of because this is the guy who traded Arvinson and Ryan Ellis, not last summer, but the summer before that. This is also the guy who's been doing this for 30 or 40 years and doesn't have a Stanley Cup. Like, I don't feel like he's interested in that, which is, then, is he the guy that should be? This is the, this is the, this is the, this is the flyers. situation where they were like, oh, we're going to make the playoffs. And everybody's like, well, no, doesn't seem particularly likely, more likely than it was with the Flyers, obviously.

But, like, I think it would be totally reasonable to say that they weren't going to make the playoffs and they're not, you know, now, or now it doesn't feel like it anyway. And I don't know what you do if you're David Poyle because, you know, the odds that this team starts making up ground isn't. Don't feel particularly high. And yet, like, half the team has, like, a full no move clause or whatever, you know? That's, all the big names, I guess, are guys that maybe you wouldn't be able to move. Because even if, like, say, like, Phila Forsberg and Yossi have no, full no moves.

Ryan McDonough has a full no trade. But, like, Matt Duchain's no trade is, he's paid $8 million for the next four years. that's Brian Johansson's no trade is he's paid $8 million for the next three years. Michael Granlin's no trade is he's paid $5 million for the next three years. McDonough signed for another four years. Matias Eckholm signed for another four years, although that's a player I like or whatever. But they're just like locked into this group, is my point. I don't know what you do here.

I think you go forward and you're hoping for another year like last year where your goal he gets you into the playoffs. And then once you're in the playoffs, I don't know. I mean, it's funny, right? Because we always say, like, hey, once you're in the playoffs, who knows? Because you're flipping coins. But when making the playoffs means you get to play the avalanche. I don't know, man. That doesn't feel like a coin anymore.

Sure. That feels like you're going to get your doors blown off in your rule and a 20-sided die and just hoping for good luck. Yeah, it feels like the coin flip thing is maybe not. not as prevalent as it used to be. You know, where the teams that made the, you know, fake COVID years aside, the, the teams that made it the last few years, you were like, oh, that's a legitimate team for sure. You know? Yeah. So.

I don't know. Nashville, they are, as of today, they are on the road for five games and it starts with Edmonton, Calgary. So, again, they're another team. You look at the schedule of teams of who they. played and there's not they they've lost to the kings they've lost to the cat there's the capitals again and they had that one win over the blues and other than that it's uh well i guess they lost to dallas twice so they're playing some middle of the pack teams but again it's well i mean dallas has been good to start the year yeah so but yeah edmonton calgary

Vancouver seattle colorado and then they're they they come home in in two weeks so I don't know. I have not been, well, I wasn't buying the Predators all last year right up until they were in the playoffs. Like buying them as a playoff team, I mean. And like I said, they finished like two points clear of the ninth place scene. Like, it's not like they, this wasn't like the Eastern Conference last year. It's like every team that made the playoffs had 100 points.

You know, they did not have that. They had, how many? 97 it says here. 97. And yeah, like, I guess my point is they're playing badly. They don't have a lot of guys where you're like, he's 100% going to turn it around. Yossi, I guess, is the one guy where you're like, he has it in him to just become a dominant force again. And if that happens, you know, maybe they go from being like a 45% XG team to a 47% XG team.

The way this is a classic team where you're like, what's the ceiling here? like what's the best case scenario at this point other than other than every team's best case scenario is our goal it goes on an insane heater and they have a better chance

of doing that than a lot of other teams because Saros is awesome however there aren't a lot of teams that can get unbelievable goal tending and outperform 45% of the expected goals

yep it's that simple all right right, let's talk about one more team like this. A team that I think gave their fans a lot of cause to be optimistic heading into this season. It's the Columbus Blue Jackets. Good. Right?

Because they signed Johnny Goodroly. They're signed Derek Branson. The less said about that, the better, obviously. He's been awful. But like they get Patrick Linnae. Linae was really fucking good for them last season after the trade. You know, like point-of-game guy scored it like a other. A 40 plus goal ace.

Yep. And then they go get Johnny Godreau and you're like, oh, you stick him on the line with Linae and you're all set. Now, granted, I believe Linae did miss a few games. Yeah, he hasn't played a ton, but. Yeah. He's done a ton when he has played either. Yeah.

But this team stinks. There's no other way to say it. These guys are awful. And they, so, I mean, if you, if you read the previews at the athletic, uh, that Dom puts to get Dom and, and, uh, who do you have number one in the league with those previews? You know what? I don't want to talk about this. I want to go back to Halloween candy. Um, but he, he, his, his other, uh, out on a limb was he had, or his model, I guess, had the blue jackets being worse this year than they were, like,

last year. And people were like, what the hell? I mean, they added the number one free agent. They added a legitimate superstar. You know, not just the number one free agent in the NHL, which usually means you overpaid for, you know, some second liner, but they got a legitimate superstar. And how could they possibly be worse? And the answer was that a lot of the numbers, the underlying numbers, last year indicated that they were not as good as their record show. They had 81 points last year, which is not a good total. And yeah. They were like a legit below 500 team, 37, 38, and 7 last year.

So I don't, you know, nobody was looking at this team. I saw very, very few people considering this team, even as a playoff team, just based on adding Johnny Goddrow. The goaltending was still a question. They're still, but this is much worse than I think any of us. Yeah, they are getting 875 goaltending with. for those who maybe aren't familiar, you want to be above like 900. Elvis Merslickens has a 4.75 goals against, which is...

864 for Elvis Mertis. That's some 80s numbers right there. And like bad 80s numbers. Yeah, but when you have like a goal against that high, it's like that shows that your goalie stinks and he's getting shelled, which is not a good combo. Now, this is what I wanted to say. The Blue Jackets are 28th in the league, by all situations, expected goals.

41.3%. First of all, the fact that there are four teams below that is insane. That's ridiculous. In fact, there are three teams in the 30s right now. The Flyers, Ducks, and Coyotes. But, you know, they're a mile. But, like, the difference between 27 and 28 is also the difference between, like, whatever, sixth and tenth in the league.

Like, it's, they're a mile behind the capitals who are bad. So, you know, the fact that they're only giving up 36, or, uh, only getting 36% of the goals, like, that's actually kind of, uh, they're underperforming because of the golden, but you can't expect it to turn around. It's my point. Um, and I don't, I, look, we've said it a million times. If there's going to be a year where you're underperforming, this is the year. year to do it.

Yeah. That would be, that would be all right. Get, get one of the big centers and put them with with Godreau. But, oh, man. But there, but again, this is a, this is a group they're like locked in with. Cadro, line, a, you know, uh, yeah, those guys were, Werensky, obviously, they gave him the please stay in Columbus contract back. Werenzky, Goodbranson, Merslikens, like, these are all guys.

aren't going anywhere for like three or four years. And obviously, like, you're not sweating it with, like, Gidreau and maybe even Linae of, in terms of turning it around. And obviously, big contracts like Jake Voracek and Gus Nyquist are coming off the books. Yeah. You know, sooner than later. They'll have room to work with. But, yeah, that's the one that does concern you a bit. They have a lot of good prospects, too.

A lot of good prospects. Yes. Kent Johnson's going to be a very good player in this league. Cole Sillinger is going to be a very good player in this league. Yeager Orchinov is probably going to be a very good year. Their power play this year. Woof. Boy, and if there's one thing you would have said, that's where Johnny Goddrae is going to clean up.

Yeah. Johnny Goddreau, like, you know, feeding Patrick Linae. Yeah. O for 25, which let me just. Unbelievable. Zero percent. That works out too. I saw a Dom, I think it was, tweeted it just because he was being a wise ass.

A little rascal. But he's like, imagine if Johnny Goddreau had chosen the right team and gone to New Jersey. how good New Jersey would be and how much worse the blue jackets would be. But I don't know. It is crazy. I don't know. I mean, it's just tough. I thought they'd be better than.

Yeah, if you're a Columbus fan, you're going into this season like, all right, we have something. We have some optimism. We got something to hang our hats on. You're not stupid. You're not thinking we're going to win the cup. You're probably not even thinking make the playoffs. but you could play some meaningful hockey in the second half, that'd be fun.

And, you know, now they're going to Europe right now. They're heading off to Finland to play the avalanche. Yeah, did you know about this? Because I had what I saw like, yeah. I saw like a headline on NHL.com that was like, oh, the global series is, and I was like, I thought we already did that. We didn't already do that. And they were like, no, we definitely did.

The only reason I know this stuff is because whenever I'm doing schedules or stats. I always do everything on hockey reference. And hockey reference puts a note next to the Europe games. Because otherwise, if I'm looking at anything else, I'm just like, oh, the avalanche just have six days off for some reason. That's weird. And then you realize like, oh, God, they're, they're heads. So who knows? We just said with the, um, with the predators and sharks, those are weird games. Maybe those are the two games, get them back on track. But man, they've, they got their doors kicked in the last three games, including losing Arizona. Yeah. What kind of team was lose to Arizona, right?

But yeah, I mean, to your point, over the last three games, they've been outscored 17 to four in three games. I guess here's my only thing. Oofy, doofy. Okay, so they got, they lost Arizona, but here's their other losses. Carolina, Tampa. Yeah, you're going to lose two. Team you're going to lose.

St. Louis, when they were to go three and oh, so this is before St. Louis fell off a cliff. Right. lost to the penguins before the penguins fell off a cliff, coyotes, Bruins, and then the Devils, who we just finished. They played a very good schedule, yeah. There is some like, okay, you know what, schedule-wise, they've had it really tough and... But they're not hanging with those teams at all. Yeah, exactly.

Like, you want to see, you know, if you're going to be the playoff bubble team, you've got to steal like a couple of points against those teams, and they haven't done that. They have, you know, that's the other thing. They're three and seven and oh, so like not even a loser point. There's, their wins are against Vancouver, Nashville, and the Rangers. Boy, hey, remember like second game of the season? Everyone's like, all the Rangers, look out for these fucking guys. The Rangers, I was told the Rangers were elite.

The Rangers had played at an elite level as long as you didn't count the game where they didn't play well. Yeah, and like they're not bad or anything, but it feels like they're coming back down to Earth a little bit. like they beat the lightning opening night, they beat the wild who aren't having a particularly great start to the seat, or weren't anyway. And then everybody's like, oh, well,

here we go. Lose to the jets. Beat the ducks. Losing overtime to the sharks. Lose to the blue jackets. Oh, these aren't good teams that they're losing to for the most part. And then like,

yeah, they're beating Arizona now, you know, like, okay. Yeah, good job. So,

yeah, Columbus, you've got Colorado twice. You come back from Finland. And you've got garbage. Philly Islanders, Philly,

Habs, red wings in a five-game stretch. So if you want to put it back and then you got Florida, oh, and then Montreal Islanders, Predators. So if you want to put it back on track,

you've got a shot coming up. But it's got to happen quick. Got to happen really quick. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't think there are any other teams where it's like,

I guess the blues are the one other team where you're like, oh, they like kind of just don't look good. Uh-huh. They're 26th in XG. They're below five. There are a couple games below 500.

They've had some injuries. They start three and oh. Yeah. You know, not against great teams, but they had that, you know, the game where they, they wane in and shut out the Oilers. Yep. Um, and since then, oh, boy, they went, 25 to 8. They've been outscored in their last five games.

Yeah. Now, hey. Oh for five, no points. Anybody, maybe I'm just, maybe this is me going out on a limb here, but anybody's seen Jordan Bennington save percentage on the season? I'm going to go, I'm going to say it's amazing. Well, it started amazing, right? Like, that's, that's kind of the thing.

He was back. That's, that was the, he was fully back. And then he gave up 11 goals in two games to the, to the Canadians and the Kings, to offensive dynamos. His save percentage is 882 on the year. I don't expect that to last, but I also don't expect him to be like, oh, also I've stopped, you know, 89 of 94 shots or whatever he had to start the year. So, I don't know. They have a weird week.

They played, they lost last night. They've got one game in the next week. And that's at home to the Islanders. So in theory, some time to sort it out, maybe rework a few things in the same. system. But, yeah, that's... It'll be interesting. This is a team where...

Well, so what was interesting, I guess, was last year, they kind of outperformed their underlying numbers a little bit. And everyone was like, well, it's because of all the speed and skill they have. And they got by with, like, a really good power play. Also last year. And this year, they don't even have the underlying numbers. Like they were like a, they were 16th in expect goals last year, it says here. And they're way worse than that now.

And so, you know, maybe you can outperform being 16th. I don't know how much you can outperform being like 24th or whatever they are. Yeah. I don't know. But they're another team that's had some tough injuries like consistently throughout the year. So I don't know. So to summarize, everyone is bad. except for the devils.

Yeah, pretty much. Devils are just destroying everyone. Yeah, the devils, the Bruins, and Vegas. Bruins are good. And everybody else is like, who knows what you get on any given night. But yeah, why don't we take another break, and we will come back and we will talk about

the new rink in Arizona. How's that sound? Sounds fun. Great. I don't know. I hope it has a funny name we can make jokes about it. Okay, we'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Uncommon Goods.

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Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon goods, we're all out of the ordinary. All right, we're back. And like we said, right before the break, we got to talk about this new arena they opened in Arizona. The arena itself looks cool. It seems like everybody had a really good time over the weekend. Mm-hmm.

there are some problems though some would say yes although I guess the first thing to say is Pierre Luke Dubois called it the best ice in the league yeah people have been raving about the ice yeah crazy which is surprising I guess

well I wonder do like if you just put in ice and it's barely been used ever with that. Does that like make it better? I don't know. I don't think it would.

I can't see why it would. But maybe also the fact that it's a smaller building, maybe it's just some of the challenges with ice is, you know, you get these giant buildings. You got 20,000 warm bodies coming in to watch. What a call. But yeah, the ice apparently is fantastic. Yeah. Hey, that's a positive. The, you know, everybody, like I said, everybody seemed to have a blast at these games over the weekend.

Yeah. And like we said this, right? Like it's, like two things can be true at once. It can be kind of a joke that a big league team is playing in a 5,000 seat building that they have to share as like the lesser roommate. The secondary tenant. Of a like low level college team. And also it's probably fun as hell to go to one of those games, especially like in the student section and, you know, in their they gave out their little bullet wigs. Because it's called the moment.

Is that why you think? I think. Now, does that hairstyle maybe have anything to do with a hockey history? Could that be possible? It might. I'll have to go back and see. Good ally Afraidy down there, make it a whole different arena. There it is.

I, you know, sure. Like, I just, I feel like it caught in the middle on this because I don't. I feel the exact same way. Like, I don't want to kick. coyotes fans when they're down. The organization is one thing, but look, there's diehard coyote fans out there. Not a lot. And they've had a lot for a long time. Yeah. And they've, and they've been punchlines and they've taken a bunch of shots. Many of them deserve towards the team, but some of them not. Like some of them, you know, Canadians just want to grab the team and stick it in Quebec

City. And so we just dump on everything that happens there. So you want to see them, hey, it'd be it'd be cool if this ended up being a great place to go to a game and a really unique thing for a few years and all of that. And yet at the same time, like, we're not being outrageous by pointing out that this is sort of silly. And it's not, you know, you're not picking on them to point out that like the visiting dressing rooms weren't ready yet. Which was expected. That's why if you look at the coyote schedule, it's like they started on the road for a whole bunch. Now they've got a few games at home and then they go on the road again because there's this addition to the building. Yes. They wanted to play a huge percentage.

Like basically they didn't want to have a home game until like late November, early December because the rink wasn't going to be ready. And the NHL was like, we're not going to let you do that. Yes. And the New York Islanders were like, you might want to think twice about doing that. But yes. So they've got the building. And the building is like it's a college arena and it's ready. The building itself is fine.

But there's like this addition that the coyotes are paying to put on it that is going to host, among other things, the real visiting dressing room. And it's not ready yet. So they've had to, you know, for four games, the visitors have to dress in basically little circus tents or whatever it is. It's on the practice ice surface. It's, it's, it's not, it's not great. And, you know, like I, I did see something funny where, you know, all the, all the coyote's defenders and that are, you know, saying, like, it's the dressing rooms are fine. They're, you know, they get the job done. And somebody was like, then why didn't they make the coyotes dress there and let the visitors have the functional locker room?

No, we're not going to do that. We will definitely make you dress in a. No, right. Everybody who's saying it's fine is a psycho. Yeah. It's not fine. Yeah. Like, okay.

It's not the end of the world, but it's also, like, I'm not being a Canadian media jerk to point out that some of those images coming out looked a little bit silly. They looked awful. And like, let's put it this way. Craig Morgan, who's like the coyote's insider guy. He like took video of them setting up the room with just like the pipe and drapes situation, making it look like a backstage segment on WWRWA in fucking 2003, right? Yep. And obviously it's like this is even it being set up.

It looked okay once everything was fully set up. But these guys are professional athletes. You know what I mean? And in the video, like, him and his co-host, whose name I do not know, talked about it on their like video podcast. And they're saying things like, if you're making fun of this, you've got to check your privilege. And it's like, shut the fuck up.

That's the stupidest shit I ever heard in my entire life. Like, you can say, look, this is not ideal. there nobody's saying it is ideal and I don't think anybody's saying and it's temporary and we all and it's super temporary but like you don't you cannot be in a situation where you're saying the haters and losers up in Canada are going to make fun of this and actually it's not that bad and it's like no it's it's even worse than that as a matter of fact like like you said why didn't the coyotes like volunteer to take that room. You know exactly why, because it sucks. You wouldn't, believe,

let's put it this way. I have been in a short season single A baseball locker room. It's not the Ritz Carlton. You know what I mean? It looked a thousand times better than that. So, you know,

say what you want about it. Like, this is humiliating for, maybe not for the coyotes because, again, the other thing Craig Morgan kept saying in his video, like the coyotes were put in an impossible situation, blah, blah, blah.

That's true. This is, however, humiliating for the NHL. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's more of a, if it's a negative reflection, it's on the league and not on, not on, yeah, not on the coyotes. And, and yeah, I mean, the coyotes are put in a bad situation and the new, new-ish ownership group and all that. I don't want to hear about, oh, they were put in a bad situation.

They got kicked out of their old building. Their old building was like, we don't want you here. Partly because they weren't paying the bill, or they didn't trust them to pay the bills. To keep paying the bills, right. So, like, I don't want to hear about they were put in impossible situation. Mm-hmm. You know, like, that, that to me is, is, like, crazy. Like, they, I think it's fair to say they put themselves in an impossible situation.

Yeah, I mean, it's an impossible situation, but it's not all stuff that just happened to them. By accident, right? This isn't all like happenstance. Yes. Right. So, but let's talk about how temporary this thing is supposed to be, right? Because that's the other thing. Well, we're not going to be in Mullet Arena forever.

And isn't that such a funny name? We're not going to be there forever. This is this is going to be a few years and we'll and you know, we're hopefully going to have our big new rink. And once we have our big new rink with the, you know, the attendant apartments and theaters and upscale stores and all that shit, we're going to be set for life. We're not, we're not going to leave the valley for decades. This is everything they're saying, right? And yet, if you, again, like Craig Morgan doing a great job covering this whole situation, he had an article the other day, they were saying in that video podcast and even leading up to it, well, the city council is going to vote on the coyote's proposal at the end of November. And once that happens, they can break ground on all the stuff they need to do.

I don't know if you know this. They're supposed to be building this on a landfill. Okay That is like Directly in the flight path to Sky Harbor Airport That's that's real That's not that's uh Okay

Nothing is embellished there Okay So uh Once they start the process of like actually being approved and being able to put shovels in the ground It's going to take like months to clear out all the trash that they would need to clear out for like site remediation or whatever. So that's step one. Once that's done,

it's going to take about two years to actually build the rink itself. So we're talking about two and a half years once that approval takes place. And that might even be a best case scenario, two and a half years. Yeah. However, it now looks like,

instead of a vote that the city council is going to do, they're going to vote to make it a public referendum that gets voted on sometime in 2023. No hard and fast aid on that yet. So now we're talking maybe they're ready for the start of the 25, 26 season, which is a long time from now, obviously. And that is so the other thing about that is even if it gets approved, then there could be lawsuits from multiple other parties such as the Goldwater Institute and the airport and a neighboring city, I think too. And it's like even if those get dismissed, which apparently people are telling Craig Morgan, I don't know.

know who's telling him this, but apparently people are telling him, like, I don't think any of these lawsuits would have a lot of merit necessarily. And Craig's very plugged in, we should say. Very plugged in. He is absolutely the source for- The insider in Arizona. Like, I don't even think there's a remotely close second. Let's put it that way. And so we're talking about if ground breaks the second it gets approved. We're talking. We're talking about, we're talking about, we're talking maybe the start of the 25, 26 season, this is ready to go. So that would mean two more full seasons at Arizona State minimum. And it could even be into 26, 27.

Now I'm going to ask you this very important question. How many guys will the Arizona coyotes have under contract in 2627? Oh, my God. current that are currently signed through 2627 obviously like they will have re-signed dylan gunther before then and yeah but uh is it clayton keller still clayton keller is one of them yes is he he's got to be the only one no there's one other one that's and it's really funny who it is who is it Lawson Krause okay however they do they won't be uh they won't be uh this guy won't be playing for them probably, but they will have also the retained salary on Oliver Ekman-Larsen's cap.

Ah, good. Okay. Well, I mean, as long as you've got that, yes, you're right. Okay. So, there you go. I mean, look, the coyotes are very, I got to be on Arizona NPR last year, or last week to talk about the coyotes. Yeah. It was, and look, it's, it's very, very obvious with the player.

is here. They're supposed to be in this little tiny arena for three years. As you say, could end up being more than that, but three years. They're tanking. They're going to get a superstar prospect. Hopefully Connor Bedard. And they build around that. And usually it takes a superstar like that about three years to turn a team around. By the time you're ready to go into a new arena, the team is worth watching again. And until then, you just hit pause and you, you know, let 5,000 people show up and get drunk at your games and put. on mullet wigs and have fun that way and watch their team lose to everyone except the Leafs.

It's a plan. It makes sense. It wouldn't be that hard to sell me on it if I was an owner. Yeah. And, you know, I'd be buying it. I probably wouldn't be paying you on time for it, but I'd be buying it. I guess my point is that between now and 25, 26 or whatever we want to say, and if we're cutting it back to 25, 26.

They also have Nick Schmaltz under contract till then. But that's the only other guy. But I guess it's a situation where if I'm a coyote's fan, I wonder how soon the novelty of the rink wears off. As much as it's nice to be able to get there quickly, which was obviously the problem with the other arena. And, um, but I, I just wonder if you're in the middle of your, obviously they're going to be there next year.

No question about that. So if you're like, okay, 23, 24, you're in the second year of being a 25 win team or whatever they're going to be this year. And it's like January and you have a ticket to see them play a team. You absolutely, like the Columbus Blue Jackets. It's like a team you have no reason whatsoever to care about. how fast is that novelty wear off? I think that's a really legitimate question. Now, granted, that's my question.

So, of course, I think it's legitimate. Yeah. But I mean, and some of it is, I guess, how much you're cycling through different fans, right? Because, I mean, we kind of felt the same way with Vegas a little bit. Like when they first landed and we're like, ah, but is this, you know, oh, yeah, the first time you go through the building, it's amazing. But is it going to, and it still is. Now, that team doesn't stink. But like it helps that they were a 112 point team or whatever that first season.

Exactly. That is going to win over hearts and minds. But yeah, I'm curious to see like it, I think it's a fair question. I think year three has the, well, but look, also part of it is, you know, maybe year two is Connor Bedard's rookie year, in which case it's going to be fun as hell to get down there. And, you know, like I saw, some of it is also the visiting team, right? Like come see Sidney Crosby from 20 feet away, right? A ton of it is going to be visiting fans. So, yeah, I'll go on vacation to Phoenix for a weekend.

Yeah. In the winter. Sure. Yeah. Five feet away. Go, you know, it'll be like it'll probably, you know, and maybe it is to some extent, but it'll be like the Florida teams, right? Like they schedule around Canadian vacations and they try to have the leaves come down for

March break and that might be the same sort of thing. Yeah. You know, hey, we'll see. Like I said, I would love to go to a game there. I think it's really cool for now, but also I'm like a college hockey guy, so like I want to also go to like an Arizona state game there, you know? I think I think it's really cool for now. I just really wonder once you get to 20, once the calendar flips to 20, and maybe that's a little too far in the distance. Because like you say, maybe Connor Bard's there next year and then you're excited.

But also maybe it's like Matt Bay Mitchkov, and it's like, no, we'll get Mitchcov around the time the new arena. That's the one that you really, yeah, are hoping that, well, I don't know, maybe Arizona's in one of the best positions to take him. But we'll see. We still got a, still got a year to see how the draft shakes out. But it's a good year to be bad. They're going to be bad. And if the arena lets them be fun at the same time, then that's cool, even though we are not being at all. ridiculous to point out that the arena looks silly.

Yeah, that's right. One last thing I want to talk about this week is, you mentioned it earlier. Injuries are starting to pile up a little bit in the league. But just in like the last three or four days, I heard, I got like, I saw some really alarming stuff. Seth Jones out a month with a need, I think needs,

has a broken finger or something like that. Not that, not that Chicago is going to care terribly if they start losing more games because Seth Jones is out or whatever. but T.J. Oshy out indefinitely. Capitals don't need that, you know. Nope. Did you see this about Sean Couturier?

That the, he's out for, I don't think, did they say for the, yeah, they didn't save for the season, also. But I did see one headline from Philadelphia. I don't know, I don't know who wrote it. So maybe it's like an unreliable person or whatever. But career in jeopardy question mark? You don't want to play those games. That sucks. Nope.

And it's, you know, with him, it's a back issue. Yeah. And those are, you never know. Always tricky. We have seen guys that, you know, we've, we've seen guys get surgery and be fine. We've seen guys never come back. We've seen guys struggle with it for extended. Like, I remember Jason Spetsa went through years where his back was just a mess.

And then he came back and finished his career just fine. Real strong, yeah. It's not a great. it's not a great situation, so you wish the best for him. Yeah. And, you know, again, like those are three teams that don't look particularly good. Missing them isn't ideal, but like maybe if you're those teams, you're like, well, look. One that's a real bummer apart from Couturier, Jamie Drysdale, torn labor, I'm out four to six months.

That's, you know, six months is basically the season. Yeah. And, you know, from a cynical perspective of the ducks, like, that's fine. They're another team that stinks. They're not tanking already. But that's one guy where, what's he, 24, 22 years old. Exactly. That's, you want those guys.

Development time and. And at best. And, you know, the worst case is if it's, you know, if it takes something off of him as a young player, that sucks. That's, yeah. That's really bad. Now, Rangers, speaking of Rangers prospect or prospects in general, I guess, Rangers, a guy that was supposed to really pan out and hasn't for a bunch of reasons. Fatali Kravsov injured again, he's going to miss at least a week, it says here.

So maybe not so bad, but like this is a guy who he seems to get hurt a lot, and that's a bummer. Because, again, like, this was a guy that when he was, like, having good seasons in Russia, all Rangers, I wrote a thing like saying, maybe I'm not like super impressed with what he's done in Russia. And all these Rangers fans were like, no, he's like he's supposed to be our next monster prospect. And it just hasn't worked out for him.

And you hate to see a kid who's supposed to be really, really good just like struggle. And he, when he's healthy, he shows flashes, I think you would say. But I don't know. I hate to see a kid,

uh, in that kind of, a situation where he just can't get it on the right track. Like, it's a real bummer. One team that is interesting to me, a team that's, we mentioned them earlier, they've had a great start to the season. The Dallas stars are now missing Ottinger only,

maybe out of, again, at least a week. Yeah. And Miro Heiskenen, where it seems like less sure what's going on with him. So that was... Those are like two of their three most important players. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And the, the odds thing was, I mean, that was concerned, right, anytime you see a goalie leave in the middle of a game.

Yeah. Lower body injury. You get worried. And then they said, oh, he was going to have an MRI on Sunday and then Sunday kind of came and went

and we hadn't heard. So I was, I was starting to worry the worst, but it doesn't sound like it is. And at the end of the day, you can, you can handle a week with the backup goalie, although apparently did I see that they can't call up their,

like who's their backup? Good open. Yes, that's it. But yeah, because his cat works too. Yeah. So what they did was they signed Matt Murray. Now don't get excited, Sean. Oh, that's a common mistake.

Yeah. It's a guy he played for UMass for four or five years, I want to say. and was a perfectly good college goalie, and then went to the AAHL and has been like the best goalie in the AAHL since the end of last season, basically. And yeah, he, you know, he signed an entry-level deal because I think he was only on an AHA deal. So he signed an entry-level deal with them yesterday,

and it looks like he's going to at least be the backup, if not, get a chance to start a few games because their backup at Scott Wedgwood and he kind of stinks. So it'll be very interesting. But, you know, if it lasts more than a week, which, as you say, who knows? But you got, I mean, this guy is your meal ticket. Like you. Oh, 100%.

Got to be patient. You're really hoping and praying that. That's tough for a team that was started off in really, really good. shape and, you know, can be back to being in good shape if once those guys are back. But yeah, he's 950 right now, Ottinger. Yep. It's pretty good. But in the meantime, maybe the Robertson Hintz-Favelski line is just like, no, we got this.

It's fine. We'll just cool the game. We'll just turn line changes off and we'll be fine. Yeah. But yeah, you know, the star is like you hate to see, like you said, like they're meal ticket type players. end up on the sideline for any amount of time. The stars are, especially with the new coach, they're a fun team to watch.

They have a lot of players that, like, I've always liked, like Joe Pavelski and Robertson and Ottinger. Obviously, I saw Ottinger plenty in college and that kind of thing. They're a team I want to succeed, But at the same time, like, these are, these are tough waters to be swimming in right now. For sure. And then I guess one last thing is like the wild. We mentioned earlier, they're only 500.

And they're starting to see injuries pile up a little bit. Jordan Greenway has only played one game this year. And it was a game where he came off injured reserve, I want to say, played like two shifts and was like, oh, I got to leave. I'm hurt. That sucks. And then, yeah, Marcus Felino and Ryan Hartman are also hurt for the wild. So that's bad. Yep.

Yeah. Playing well lately, though. Got it back after the bad start, around. They were, you know, 500 for the season. But that's, remember, they just got absolutely smoked in the first free games. And we're all like, uh-oh, is Mark Andre, Flurry completely cooked and it doesn't seem like he's completely... Well, no, now he's the best goalie in the league again.

There you go. Whatever was wrong, he completely fixed it. Alan Walsh told me that he's now the best again. That's exactly right. And then one last one, some good news on the injury front, seems like Quinn Hughes is good to go for Vancouver. Nice.

They need the help. They absolutely do. So, yeah. So that's good news. Especially from him, so injury-wise. Is there anything else to talk about this week? I guess not, right? I don't think so.

I don't think. I mean, it's November now. We got that first month. Is it still too early? Can we stop saying that? Well, no, isn't that the thing of like if you're more than three points out on November first? It was four points. That was Elliot Freeman.

Is it four points out of the playoffs on November 1st? Well, shit, let's pull up the standings and figure it out. Is anyone even? In the east, the cutoff is 11. points. Okay. There is only one team in the east that is more than four points out, and it is the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Yeah. Ottawa is three points out, so I guess we'll see. Okay. And then in the west, what have we got? In the west, the cutoff is ten points. St. Louis, Vancouver, San Jose, Arizona, and Anaheim are all four points out. However, it must be said that one of those 10 points is 10 point teams is Seattle, and they've played 10 games. And like St. Louis has only played eight.

Right. So they've got to make the most of games in hand, I guess. I really kind of feel like St. Louis is the only team on that list that is making me think that they've. Vancouver obviously would like to think so. And maybe if they can string another real solid week together. But St. Louis, they. they would have to win both of their games in hand to pull even with what Seattle's already done and the way things are trending for them right now.

I don't know. I'm just looking like somebody pointed out to me. I think the East's record against the West is like severely imbalanced so far early this year. And I don't know if that means anything or if it's just one of those things. But like the East is just kicking the crap out of the West. The West has most of the bad teams in the league this year. We mentioned Columbus being at 300 points percentage and every other Eastern team 500 or more. But I'm looking at Columbus is also a minus 18 goals differential.

Detroit minus four, Toronto minus three, everyone else is plus or even in the entire Eastern Conference. There's just no red anywhere versus in the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine teams in the West. and Chicago is even. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. That's good news if you're in the West, right? Easy path. You have four teams in double-digit negative goal difference already.

Yeah. That's fucking crazy. That's tough to dig. Again, like we talked about it with Vancouver. Like that's tough to dig out from. Even if we're like, oh, St. Louis, they should be fine, right? Really, really quick. Yeah.

Like, Arizona stinks, as we thought. Anaheim stinks. which we kind of suspect it might happen. Are you at all buying the idea that either Chicago or Montreal are not terrible? Forget about playoffs or whatever, but like can be 500-ish teams. Montreal maybe, you know, I like the coaching there and I like the, I like some of the players that they have at the top of their roster. I guess I don't totally trust the goaltending with them for obvious reasons.

but Chicago, I would say no. I don't think you're getting 9-14 goal-tending out of Alex Steylock all season. Fair. And, you know, it's going to come a point where they're going to trade Kane and Taves and Domi and then like who's the best player on that team. You know, like that's kind of where I'm at with them. Like they're certainly punching above their weight, but like, again, you want to go by, you want to go by like the underlying numbers.

They're one of the worst teams in the league. They're 24th and expected goals. How about this? Like, uh, they've only scored 42% of the goals in their games and they're a 500 team. Ooh. So it seems like they're a team that they have maybe gotten beat up real bad in the games

where they got beat up and then, uh, you know, like just did the, what, you will only expect. Yeah, hang in there. Yeah, the teams, okay, well, here it is, right? The teams they've beaten, San Jose Sharks,

the Detroit Red Wings, the Seattle Cracken, and Florida. That's everybody they've beaten, and everybody else they've lost it. Florida. Florida is a good team, nobody's saying they're not. But they got outshot 31, it's already kind of turning around. Yeah, they got outshot 3,1, 22, and that. at Florida game. Fun. Fun one. Yeah. Yeah, Florida, man, they were, uh, did you see them on Saturday against

Ottawa had 58 shots in regulation? That game didn't go to overtime, man. Yeah, that's a lot of shots. That's a lot of shots. I had somebody tell me they're like, ah, but they're all from the outside. It's like, it's still 58 shots. Even if you're bawling them from the blue line, that's, that's a lot. They're still putting a lot of shots. Like, if they took 58 shots, even if they were all from the perimeter, guess what, baby? They had the puck long enough to get 58 shots on goal in the game. That's not even attempts. That's just shots on goal.

58 attempts wouldn't be like a terrible total in a game. And those are all on goal. But yeah, anyway, I guess that's it. I guess that's it. Yeah, we got to wrap up so that news can break. That's exactly right. All those PR people holding it right now. Yep. So yeah, why don't you hit us with some plugs, Sean?

Find me on the athletic for both my writing and my podcaster, the Ian Mendez. I have a piece that went up this morning on the Toronto Maple Leafs, in which I basically wrote about how, whether you think they're good or bad, or this is a fluke or something more, I kind of took off the media hat and just put on my regular fan hat. And I wrote about how I'm just kind of tired of rooting for these guys. And I don't fully know why that is. I don't know why that the most talented Maple Leafs team in my life by far is just so kind of unpleasant to watch. I have some theories, but I'm kind of, we're having a bit of a leaf fan therapy session to try to figure out, like,

are we really going to do this for the next five months while we wait for the playoffs that may or may not come? I don't know. Check that out. People seem to be enjoying it. Great. And for me, you can find all my writing at ePrinkside.com. This week I wrote about, well, let's see here. In the last few days, I wrote about why the predators are bad.

I did the power feelings. I wrote about, I have an article coming out later today about Penn State hockey. There are 8-0 to start the year. But you want to talk about a team that's only played bad teams. Penn State has only played bad teams. and their next two games, or next four games, are against Michigan and Minnesota, two of the best teams in the country.

So I'm going to learn a lot about the Penn State Nittany Lions in the next couple of weeks. And then, yeah, if you want to sign up for all that coverage, I Love EP is the code. When you get an annual subscription, I Love EP will get you an extra three months added to the end of your deal absolutely free of charges. that unbelievable.

And then Patreon.com slash puck soup for all the puck soup bonus episodes, including yesterday, me and Sean, and this guy, Deng Finanski, he came on, and we talked about the biggest draft bust of every year since 1990. That was a fun one. And people seem to really be enjoying it. Remember some busts. Remember some busts. You can't beat that.

Yep. And if you're wondering if most of them were your team, yes, they were. Absolutely. And we made sure that that would be the case. We did it on purpose, yep. Yeah, to piss you off. Yep. So yeah, check that out too, Patreon.com slash puck soup. And we'll talk to you next week. So long.

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